The Nokia Lumia 900 review

The Nokia Lumia 900 has the weight of two technology behemoths and Windows Phone fans on its polycarbonate shoulders. Ars sees if the flagship smartphone can do them all proud.

<a href='http://meincmagazine.com/gadgets/reviews/2012/04/the-nokia-lumia-900-review.ars'>Read the whole story</a>

 

[Chikahiro]

I've already pre-ordered my Lumia 900. Granted, I was an early adopter dork for Windows Phone 7, getting a Samsung Focus the week it came out (and off contract, no less). Had a chance to play with the Lumia during my brother's lunch break (he works at AT&T), and really liked it. The camera, larger screen and hot-spot ability were major selling points for me, so I went ahead and used my upgrade. Really excited, and looking forward to getting it ^_^

Now, that said, I have to readily admit that while I'm a big fan of WP7 and its aesthetic, I can't really recommend it to anyone. For most users I send them straight to iPhones. If they're power users? Android. As such, while I love my chosen platform dearly, I don't have any really compelling reason to recommend it. Similarly, its actually kind of hard to really, quickly, articulate why I love the damn thing so much, at least features-wise. Some of the stuff is easy, some of it takes some explaining, but at least for me none of it is immediately obvious. I've been following WP7 since Paul Thurott first started talking about it, been using it since launch, etc., so its not like I don't have a wealth of reasons to love it!

I love WP7, but Microsoft and Nokia really need to get their marketing pumping now and for WP8, because its really hard to user-evangelize. I've heard some people talk about tech bloggers and other folks who are crooning praises over it, but lets be honest - that's not enough and not really the sort of crowd the average user readily identifies with.

 

[Chikahiro]

That's the big question. If existing/recent Windows phones can't upgrade to WP8, then Microsoft should just give up now with Windows Phone; do they want to be like Apple and establish a long-term relationship with the consumer, or do they want to appease the handset makers.

Don't forget carriers. Lets be honest - the more consumer friendly they try to be, the worse off they'll be with the carriers. I strongly suspect each and every carrier wants Apple to be the only one acting the way Apple does...

 

[Chikahiro]

Nokia doesn't have any kind of exclusivity deal with MS do they? They could still back out and go with Android? Because Windows Phone is pretty much dead in the water. But Nokia does make great hardware and I would love to see a Nokia phone running ICS.

As I remember, they've got a deal with Microsoft (believe it was in the billion $ range) for going exclusively Windows Phone, get more ability to customize the phone/OS than other OEMs, etc. It was claimed that with all the competition with Android, it would be a lot harder to differentiate themselves or stand out.

While the 900 is a very nice phone (and I'm eager to get mine), I don't believe that Nokia (LTE aside) really got a chance to flex what they can do yet. When Apollo comes out, well, then we'll see. Personally, I hope they don't get too crazy - I don't want OS fragmentation, and some of the alleged designs Nokia is working on do worry me. The new update being worked on that lets WP7 run on half the RAM bugs me too.

I bought into WP7 because it represents, to me, a middle-ground between iOS and Android. I get a good, consistent experience with the OS, software I like (love Zune-player), at the time it seemed that MS was going to be tough with carriers concerning updates (which is looking more uncertain now), I got to choose from a variety of OEMs/styles, and a lot of the design outright appealed to me (including the baseline for hardware). While I do appreciate OEMs and carriers wanting more points of differentiation, I look at them and how they (IMO) ruin Android phones, making them into the OEM PCs of the smartphone world where a smart user pretty much HAS to root the things to get all the updates? No, sorry, I don't trust them. I personally feel they've not really a good job of differentiating WP7 phones even with their available options (microSD storage, keyboards, apps, etc). I didn't go Apple because I want more choice than their one size fits all approach. All three have their pros and cons, and for what *I* wanted, WP7 had a good balance of the two.

I personally never thought or expected WP7 to "do well" or be an iOS/Android-killer. All I hope is for it to, in time, become a profitable 3rd place in the smartphone market for MS and its partners. I continue to hold that hope, and hope RIM can turn around. I want the smartphone market to be rich, diverse and competitive rather than having only two options...

 

[Chikahiro]

This seems a very strange reading of the situation. You do realize that this phone validates most of Apple's design decisions --- the very same decisions that were considered crazy and backward and user-hostile when undertaken by Apple?

The hardware has, for example, a built-in battery and no SD card slot. And a limited amount of RAM. And a go-slow attitude towards ramping up the number of cores (some might say too go-slow).

The OS take security seriously, with consequences for sandboxing and the app store; it takes battery life seriously, and so restrictions on multi-tasking; and it takes seriously the attempt to reduce the importance of the file system as the center of the user's computer world. All just like iOS.

Nice way of looking at things. I personally mellowed on some of those issues, but that's just me and my usage. My Palm Centro and Samsung Focus had no need for additional batteries due to power concerns, although yanking it for hard resets was useful once in a while. I think 16g is a reasonable amount of space (upgraded my Focus from 8g to 16g as its one of the only WP7 that can accept microSD cards). Not sure on the amount of RAM, although that does tie directly into multitasking/task-switching.

Trick is there's a bit going on here that's more tied to the OS than anything else. As I understand the OS, more RAM won't really benefit much right now as apps all stay within a certain size. WP7's predecessor had actual multitasking, but that got ripped out with WP7 and task switching brought in with WP7.5. I hear conflicting reports whether or not the WinMo kernal can actually make use of multiple cores or not, but Apollo (WP8, based on WinNT's kernal) allegedly will. As such, having multiple core hardware might not make sense right now if the OS can't handle it or it isn't officially supported by MS.
I'm personally not familiar enough with how iOS does things, so if you'd like to go into more detail, I'd appreciate it. To be honest, while iOS and Android aren't really my tastes, I feel that right now the overall platforms available are pretty good. As such, its more a matter of finding the best match for you and what you want, yeah? I chose my WP7 based on aesthetics and fascination, but I know that an iPhone, Android, Blackberry or even a Palm Pre would've served me perfectly well. As a consumer, I think that's a pretty darn good place to be.

edit: I should mention that the Samsung Focus was considered by more than a few people to be the best of the launch WP7 phones, and I feel it still holds its weight favorably. The main reasons I'm upgrading are the screen size, improved camera and LTE/hotspot built in, plus I really do want to support the platform (for only $100, why not?). Not the most rational reasoning, I realize, but I really do love WP7 (not that I expect everyone else to, or even understand why - as a former OS/2, BeOS, Dreamcast, NGPC, etc., fan, I'm a little off).

 

[Chikahiro]

Just recieved my phone, AT&T has removed Nokia Drive and Maps.

I'll be returning the phone, as this was the one item in my mind that set it above others.

If you go to the Marketplace, Nokia should have its own category. It might be in there (ie, available for download versus installed by default). While not a factor for me, I hope its there for you!

 

[Chikahiro]

…having multiple core hardware might not make sense right now if the OS can't handle it or it isn't officially supported by MS.
I'm personally not familiar enough with how iOS does things, so if you'd like to go into more detail, I'd appreciate it. To be honest, while iOS and Android aren't really my tastes, I feel that right now the overall platforms available are pretty good.

This all seems very reasonable and informative. I think many are concerned that the 900 is planned for near-instant obsolescence. I certainly expect that WP8 will be able to use multi-core hardware; its inter-app communication feature would seem to benefit from plenty of RAM and having a relatively slow browser is just shooting yourself in the foot in 2012. And given that Microsoft is pretty hardcore about minimum requirements for WP7, I don't see how they're going to try putting power-hungry WP8 features onto a machine with as modest specs as the 900.

While the phone meets reasonable expectations, it seems pretty clearly designed to support ZERO growth in those expectations. Today, you can edit a video on your phone & slap it onto Facebook pretty quickly. People do that, and like it, but it's not competitive on this device. More CPU would make it possible; more RAM would likely, too. Maybe Microsoft can speed up IE just by software, but that speedup will be aimed at WP8, so even if it comes to WP7, it might be architected primarily to benefit from multiple CPU cores and just not help much on this phone. Ditto, if other phones have a fair amount of raw CPU, game designers will have to put a fair amount of time into tweaking a design for WP that preserves the play features and view; that means fewer quality products. And all these in turn spell a vicious circle of weak apps, few customers, low demand, low profit incentive for everybody. That can starve a platform, but fast.

Those are perfectly legitimate concerns, and really good ones at that. I do believe Microsoft needs to publicly address this, although its possible that the lackluster performance of WP7 has given carriers and OEMs more leverage to use against them. As such, while I'd love to see an Apple-like upgrade (everyone gets it), we might see a worst-case Android upgrade (ie, OEMs and carriers decide that the best way to upgrade is to get a new phone).

As for hardware/power, Nokia (and assumedly other OEMs) are asking Microsoft to allow them to make lower-power/cost handsets, so I would hope/expect that WP8 won't be significantly more power-hungry than WP7. The trick will come in how to handle the marketplace - can you see what you can't satisfactorily run? Personally, I'm pretty happy with performance all around, but it could be better (Donpachi Maximum can get intense at times)... I'm personally wondering if OEMs and MS want to go for the high-end or go for mid range and lower phones. I wouldn't want a low to mid range Android, necessarily (paranoia, I'm sure there are great handsets values there), but I'm not sure if I'd want a high-end WP7 phone (ie, $200+), either. So, for the average user (which I'm guessing I'm sorta?), a Windows Phone might be a good alternative to some of the Android handsets out there, but on the high end I don't think so.

Certainly, I'd give my mom a WP7 long before I gave her an Android, and would prefer it to an iPhone simply because the Start screen is so simple.